


An Adventure of Sorts

by The_Lights_Dance_On



Series: Of Psychopaths [1]
Category: No Fandom
Genre: Animal Attack, Animal Death, Arthurian, Child psychopath, Childhood, Children, Fae & Fairies, Fairies, Heroism, Killing, Murder, Pigs, Psychopathic Traits, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Queen Niobe, Stabbing, Talking Animals, The Odyssey References, The Sword in the Stone, There's a Cowardly Pig Called Humberto, Torture, psychopathy, the golden fleece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 07:48:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lights_Dance_On/pseuds/The_Lights_Dance_On
Summary: Cerise left for adventure because that was what was done.
Series: Of Psychopaths [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540624
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	An Adventure of Sorts

Cerise left for adventure because that was what was done.

She had been raised by four mothers, all of whom had had adventures. On their sturdy mantlepiece was a framed letter from a river god, thanking her first mother profusely for retrieving what he maintained should not be called a cornucopia, but a horn. Every Christmas her second mother received a package from Aeaea, and then served a gorgeous honey-roast pork that her first mother would not touch. Her third mother had bottles and bottles of water that she gathered from a rock with a woman’s face. The lady had been a Queen and told her many things, including that she should never drink what she collected, because it tasted like tangible misery. And when Cerise had been born, her fourth mother left for Crete and came back with a pair of needles and enough fleece for her child to have indestructible golden mittens until she turned fourteen.

She packed a bag with food and water and her favourite knife, and then went to say goodbye to her mothers. She was sure that she would return. Surviving was in her blood like adventuring was. 

‘Do not be afraid to right a wrong,’ said her first mother, and she pressed into her hand a single live snake. Cerise did not ask questions. She simply let it slip up her sleeve and wrap around her shoulder. 

‘Beware danger, but when you can, befriend it,’ said her second mother. She gave her a jar of spice that sat in the spice drawer labelled DO NOT INGEST. ‘It reacts immediately.’ 

‘Always listen to another’s misery,’ said her third mother, and she gave her a bottle of the crying queen’s water. 

‘And it is a foolish thing to be a hero for heroism’s sake,’ said her fourth, and she handed Cerise her last ever pair of golden mittens. 

‘If you walk all day,’ she called as Cerise left, because she had always been the most motherly, ‘you will come to a bar where you can spend the night.’ And then the fourth mother retreated into the house, before she could be scolded by the second for coddling or advice that undermined her authority. 

As she began the long and lonely trudge to the bar, Cerise wondered why she wanted to be an adventurer. She supposed that it was hard to tell if you had never been adventuring. She had little aversion to travelling all day, because it was the sort of thing her mothers expected, but on the way, she had encountered an extremely thick-skinned boar with the apparent the intention of eating her. It had little response whether she tried to insult or stab it, and eventually she had to plunge her knife into its mouth. 

Pulling it out was sweaty and a little disgusting.

By the time she reached the bar, it was almost deserted. It was dimly lit in each corner by lamps that looked as if they had caught the flu. Cerise would have dismissed this as a stupid thought if she did not get the feeling that they were alive. The tables had an odd texture and seemed strangely shaped, but she could barely see them in the essential darkness.

The only other being there was a rabbit sipping beer out of a glass that looked too big for his paws. When he saw Cerise, his ears twitched. 

‘Your dress is muddy,’ he said. 

‘Well, I’m very sorry,’ she said crossly. ‘I was slaughtering a boar.’ 

The rabbit went very quiet from that moment onwards, perhaps thinking that her knife might extend to rabbit. Only a rabbit, thought Cerise, that would be quite so rude.

The barman was so pleased that she had killed the hog (it apparently drove away business) that he gave her a free packet of crisps, but he was a very aggressive barterer and did not think it a task worthy of staying the night. In the end, Cerise agreed to go back and retrieve the carcass of the boar, because, apparently, he liked to decorate the bar with animal skulls.

Her first mother would have told her to explain that the lighting was so pitiful that nobody could possibly tell. Her second mother would have reminded her that she knew where the boar was, but not to where to find some better lamps. 

Because she was very tired, Cerise decided to take her second mother’s advice. 

By the time she returned, now thoroughly exhausted, a boa constrictor was talking to the palpably nervous rabbit. The barman burned the boar corpse while Cerise ate her crisps. The snake on her shoulder began to hiss very urgently.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the boa constrictor, when it sounded like it might resort to biting to be heard. She had a suspicion that the snake was venomous. ‘Could you possibly tell me what my snake is saying?’

‘Oh, he’s telling you that the barman wants to burn you in the fire and turn your skeleton into a table,’ said the boa constrictor.

Cerise blinked.

‘Like the boar,’ he added helpfully.

‘If you know that,’ said Cerise, made rather indignant by his nonchalant tone, ‘why don’t you leave?’

‘He wouldn’t do it to _us_,’ said the rabbit. ‘We’re regulars.’

Cerise wanted to wonder how the barman had any regulars if he frequently burnt his patrons’ bodies on his fire, but decided that the situation needed immediate addressing.

‘I would be excellent for business if you took me on as a cook,’ she called to the barman, who she thought was probably listening. 

‘I wouldn’t eat anything served by a girl in a muddy dress,’ said the rabbit. 

‘You would if you could taste it,’ said Cerise. ‘I’m the best cook for miles. I’d make you heaps of gold. Twenty people would come a day to taste my dishes. That’s one-hundred-and-forty more skeletons to make a week.’ 

Convincing them took a while, because the rabbit was very poor at maths, but eventually the boa constrictor came up with the clever idea of having Cerise cook for them. She roasted some limp potatoes and a skinny chicken in the oven, glad that she hadn’t ordered anything from the barman, and then took out the special spice and shook some all over it. 

They each took a bite, the rabbit opened his mouth to complain, and then she was facing three pigs. 

Cerise smiled and drew her knife again. She knew how to deal with boars. 

She left the bar followed by a rickety parade of sentient tables. In the light she could see that they were just animal skeletons, some of horribly deformed. The recently burnt boar was behind her, (holding a cat that had had all its legs twisted together to make a stand) in his mouth. He didn’t seem to have inherited any of his homicidal rage from death.  
‘Well, on our way then,’ said Cerise, and the animals that couldn’t walk were hastily picked up by those that could. There was only one left; a little mouse, with a tail that had been twisted to hold a drink and had now lost it’s balance. Cerise spent a few joyful minutes mocking it (she wasn’t sure that it could understand, but thought so), but quickly grew bored. Eventually, she stuffed it in her pocket. She would have liked to leave it behind, really, she thought, but she didn’t know if the skeletons would remain loyal if she stopped treating them as a collective. 

After an hour of walking by the tavern, the dirt road turned into paving and the streets widened. There were plenty more people now, but they parted like light through a prism once they saw her skeletons. Some of the children threw rocks, but they didn’t hurt the skeletons much and Cerise could catch the ones aimed at her in her hands. They couldn’t hope to scuff her golden gloves.

She walked until lunchtime, until she was stopped by a very tall man in a very tall hat. He had a golden carriage, a horse made out of cogs and a red, shiny face. He didn’t seem at all afraid of the skeletons, nor did he seem surprised. 

‘Are you on your way to the Fairy Fair, little miss?’ he asked. 

Cerise considered. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said at last, very politely. ‘Do you think I would have an adventure there?’

The man laughed jovially and assured her that he would, and gave her his directions. 

‘I’ll bet my gold watch on you, Miss!’ he called, as the horses began to gallop away. Cerise’s mothers had mixed opinions on bets, so Cerise herself was ambivalent: she nodded politely, and let him leave. It wasn’t as if there was much value in a gold watch: they weren’t like golden gloves.

The Fairy Fair was not very far away at all, and she barely needed the tall man’s instructions, because there was such a bustling crowd. However, there were guards at the gate (who clearly fancied themselves very important) and they were not letting in just anybody. They had a very severe-looking list and, as a shrieking lady with perfumed hair was finding out, it was very difficult to get in if you weren’t on it.

Cerise felt a little concerned that she might be prohibited, but as soon as the woman at the gate saw her skeletons, she called someone to usher her in to the “competitor’s tent.”  
‘You can only take in one, mind,’ she said, casting an eye over them. ‘Which one?’

Cerise considered, and then held out the deformed mouse. 

‘Are you sure?’ the guard asked, looking a little doubtful. ‘Maybe him?’ She nodded towards the boar.

‘Oh, there’s no point using _him,’_ said Cerise. ‘He’s a sweetheart.’ 

‘None of the others? It’s a vicious competition, you know.’

The mouse wriggled anxiously in Cerise’s hand. She grinned, holding on tight; she wished it could still squeak. And then she followed the man who had been called to usher her before the guard could ask any more questions. 

Inside the tent, there was a gathering of children. Most of them looked very suspiciously at Cerise, and then turned away. That was fine with her, because she wanted to stare.  
One boy had a copper arm. There were three girls and four boys with steel legs. One girl had a metal face, the right side a crescent moon of skin that seemed constantly irritated by the cogs that made up the rest of her face chugging against it. Cerise’s eyes widened. 

One of the girls that hadn’t turned away walked towards Cerise and held out her hand. She looked younger than most of the children, and she was very pretty, with masses of curly hair and a big garden hat. In her arms she held a bucking pig that was snorting and screaming through its rough, bumpy snout. Its teeth were long and sharp like needles and flecking thick saliva all down its owner’s legs. Cerise could see the flimsy material of her dress withering away and sore, raised red skin from her calves to her feet.

‘You have a _poisonous pig?’_ she said, impressed despite herself. ‘Aren’t your legs painful?’

‘I’ll get metal ones soon,’ the girl replied resignedly. ‘Mama says that if I do well in the Fairy Fair, she’ll pay for nice ones.’ 

‘I’d hate metal legs,’ Cerise decided. ‘And I’d hate my pig too, if he gave me them.’

‘He’s very nice really,’ said the girl, giving the pig a consoling look and Cerise a slightly offended one. ‘He can’t help being poisonous. I think he’s scared. He’s only a baby.’

‘Scared of _what?_’ asked Cerise, thinking that brave pigs were at least more respectable than cowardly ones.

The girl stared. ‘Why, the Fairy Fair, of course.’ 

Cerise scowled. Admitting that she had not the slightest clue what was about to happen was not a favourable course of action. ‘What part?’ she attempted, and the girl was oblivious enough to fall for it. 

‘Well, you know there’s always a very violent rampage to try and catch the fairy, and even if Humberto _is_ poisonous, he’s very sensitive.’

‘Fairies don’t like being chased,’ said Cerise, recalling a lesson she had learnt all too well as a child.

‘It’s not as if the fairy has a choice,’ said another girl scornfully, who had apparently been listening. She had with her a winged stag that had a very haughty look. ‘And if they don’t want to be chased, they should tell their secrets when they’re asked.’

Cerise knew that her third mother had gathered a lot of her secrets from fairies. Many of the secrets had led to big adventures, but others just meant that she grew bigger apples in the garden. Cerise was not particularly interested in gardening. 

‘Does this fairy have an _important_ secret?’

The girl sneered. ‘Well, it’s not like we know yet, is it?’ And she turned away, and so did her stag, and Cerise decided that she did not like her. She had little time to contemplate what to do about that, though, because then a big horn sounded, and they were all leaving the tent in a mad rush. The stag tried to trample and then realised it could fly. Humberto the pig squealed in terror and bolted from his owner. Cerise’s mouse curled in on itself even more. She rolled her eyes and pulled out her snake. 

_‘Get that stag,’_ she hissed, and started at a run. In the crowd of feathers and fur and screaming animals, she could dash quicker than any mouse. The fairy was trying to escape into the woods, but she was being set upon by Humberto. He was the only monster not involved in the mosh-pit, possibly because the girl had been quite right in saying that he did not want to be. He was wailing like an ugly baby and clutching onto her leg. His mouth, to Cerise’s disappointment, was firmly closed, and he seemed to be in want of rocking.

She rolled her eyes and ran, kicking a spiny cat that tried to scratch her in the mouth on the way.

The fairy, who seemed caught between wanting to sympathise and needing to get away, looked very surprised to see a girl and not a monster. She looked up at big, round eyes and proffered the leg she needed disentangling from Humberto.

Cerise smiled and raised her knife. The last thing she saw before she ducked into the darkness of the forest was Humberto the baby pig was bleeding out on the Fairy Fair floor. 

* 

Cerise and the fairy just ran for a long time, which was fine because Cerise was a very fast runner and the fairy could fly. When they were quite sure that none of the monsters would catch them – and the snake (very sulkily) had returned – they sat down to eat.

‘Let’s walk on,’ said the fairy, once they had finished. She was gazing at Cerise with eyes full of adoration. 

‘Why?’ 

‘Don’t you want to know the secret?’ she asked. And Cerise thought it probably _was_ important if she was saying it like that, so she followed her, with her knife out just in case.

The clearing in the forest had a stone, and in the stone a sword was buried to the hilt. It looked a bit heavy for Cerise’s taste, but it was very finely made and had an excellent name – Excalibur. It would make a wonderful gift for her mothers. 

‘Is this the secret?’ Cerise asked.

‘Yes,’ said the fairy, who was nodding very excitedly. She had big, bright eyes and startlingly pink cheeks. ‘If you can pull the sword out of the stone, it means you are strong enough to rule a great kingdom.’ 

Cerise frowned. Kingdoms meant responsibility, not adventures. She knew that much. Besides, from what her mothers had told her about their interactions with kings, owning one was very hard on the common sense.

‘What if someone pulled the sword out and didn’t want a great kingdom?’

The fairy at once looked very solemn. ‘It’s my duty to make sure they do.’ 

Cerise contemplated, and at once had decided what to do. She turned to the sword in the stone and clasped her hands around it, letting the metal glide against her golden gloves. And, with her feet planted firmly on the ground and the magic of the threads humming against the blade, the sword began to move. She wondered if it would do so if she took her gloves off. Probably not. But this fleece was a relic of heroes and kings, and it would claim its birthright, even though the blade – which didn’t seem to want to be pulled out – was fraying the wool at the edges. The fairy wore an expression of such beautiful relief when the sword began to slide out of the stone that Cerise had to fight to not roll her eyes.

‘Here,’ she said, once the fairy had finished celebrating. ‘Before we start to walk again, have some water.’ And she pulled out the bottle of misery. 

‘How very beautiful,’ said the first mother, looking at the sword. ‘Thank you so much, darling.’

‘How very sharp,’ the second mother corrected, taking it and running her finger along the edge. ‘It is indeed a lovely gift.’ 

‘Surely you haven’t somehow marked your golden gloves?’ said the fourth mother, forgetting all about the sword. 

‘Mother?’ asked Cerise, looking at her third mother. She was staring very closely at the name on the blade, as if this was one of the secrets she knew. 

‘What a lovely gift, dear,’ she said, in a voice that suggested that she knew that, two days of walking away, she would find a fairy stumbling around a forest, choking on misery and unable to even put an end to her sorrow. 

Cerise wondered if the competitors of the Fairy Fair would find her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Cerise is one of six protagonists with psychopathic traits that I have created for my EPQ (Extended Project Qualification.) My subject is our response to psychopaths, so three are to be made likeable and three dislikeable. Because I am concerned with people's response, I would really appreciate it if you completed this survey: 
> 
> https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/YFSBSZ5 
> 
> It's incredibly short, only four questions, and the aim is just to evaluate what you think of Cerise! Please complete it if you can and share with friends.


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